So many years, so many tears, and now a smile...
It's been a couple of years since I stopped blogging here regularly, deleted the old content, and became a sparse if not completely non-existent contributor to the blogiverse. Luckily, some of my friends saved the content for me and e-mailed it to me after it was deleted, so at least it's there for me to look back upon, even though everyone else is shit out of luck. The last couple of years were very tumultuous for me. That beautiful boy who I loved intensely? He is out of the picture. It lasted 2 years and 9 months, and I wouldn't trade it in for anything, even though it fell apart. I learned a lot through the mistakes that we made together, and am still able to call him a friend, even though a distance of thousands of miles separates us now.What happened? I screwed up, but that's definitely not the only reason that it fell apart. We were far too alike to be together - much too similar in all the worst ways. We were both overly emotional escapists with a lot of baggage that we tried hard to suppress. We tried to hide behind a chemical fog so that we wouldn't have to live in the real world. We created our own little universe, with the two of us as its only inhabitants. For most of the relationship, we were snorting meth like it could save our lives. I don't regret it - lessons can not be learned without making mistakes. But I would never, for anything, choose to do it again.
We escaped that. We moved away together to Montana, to start fresh. Things were okay up there, I suppose. I was planning our wedding. He was working a lot. We were clean. But I was holding on to a secret, and my guilt spun around in my head until it expanded to the point where I figured, "I already fucked up - I might as well go all out and ruin us beyond repair so that he will see that I am not the girl who can make him happy, so that he will finally set himself free." Bad logic, I know.
So my eye wandered. And my lips wandered. And I made yet another mistake.
And then I revealed to him all of my misdeeds one night in July, told him that after I said what I needed to say, I knew we would no longer be together. I told him that shortly before we'd moved to Montana, I had fucked our neighbor/friend who lived two doors down from us in our apartment building. And I told him about the boy next door to us in Montana who I had sort of a thing going on with and who I was starting to develop feelings for that I didn't feel comfortable having while still calling myself L's fiance.
What ensued was exactly what anyone could have predicted. We were over.
The day after the breakup, I had a breakdown.
I spent a week in a psychiatric center in Montana to be treated for depression after 1) I ran into a forest and dug all over my arms with sticks, and 2) sat on train tracks with a train coming towards me.
The hospital stay eventually ended and I took a Greyhound back to Nebraska to stay with a friend. Her life was falling apart in similar ways, so we moved to Washington for a month to clear our heads. We found clarity, decided we wanted to be home again, and returned to Nebraska in October.
And now? I am happy. I am calm. I like myself. I am in a comfortable, healthy, NORMAL relationship with a man who loves me for who I am. I love him. It happened quickly, and we're going with it.
I know now how not to hurt the people I love. I know how to recognize my warning signs. I know now that even though I can't control my thoughts, I can control my behavior by stopping it at the ritual. I know that nothing comes easy, that life is compromise, but that it's not just everyone else who needs to compromise, it's ME as well. And I know what not to settle for. I know that I deserve good things, and that I need to allow myself to accept good things when they come my way. Accept rather than push away. Embrace rather than destroy.
So in a nutshell, that's what you missed.
I cannot begin to convey how nice it feels to type these words and know that this blog will receive them once again. I may become a frequent blogger again, I may be sporadic, or I may never post again. Only time will tell. I try not to think too far ahead anymore. I'd much rather enjoy the present.
posted by Layla/Jane (whichever you prefer) @ 11/25/2008 06:14:00 PM
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